Deregulation......It's a political thing.
We seem to be rather keen on consipracy theories at the moment, deregulation obviously emotes a strong emotion within the taxi trade.
Mr Button, in his book, "Taxis, I know best", went to great lengths to explain why taxis are delimited and not deregulated.
As you will be aware, after taxis are deregulated, they still have regulations to follow, as laid down by the local authority. The only aspect that is deregulated is numbers control, and we are led to believe that this is no longer deregulation, but a more easy to swallow term called delimitation.
As you might expect, I dont really see it in the black and white terms of the eloquent Mr Button.
As regulations on numbers control are effectively deregulated, the term deregulate is actually just as true for the hackney carriage trade as it is for fishing, electricity or any other form of industry.
The fishing delimitation / deregulation is a quite interesting analogy, fishing permits have always been regulated, yet as soon as they issue more they become delimited. Of course fishermen state that issuing more licenses will deplete fish stocks, whereas would be permit holders claim the contrary.
The very fact that great lengths have been gone through to avoid the word deregulate, does actually tell you something about the public nervousness over the issue.
We have been told to trust the markets, a free market will dictate and competition will reduce prices and improve service.
The fact of the matter, in terms of formerly state owned utilities, is that the profits made now go to a small number of shareholders as opposed to back into the country.
An interesting point was privatisation, which was effectively deregulated control from public to private ownership. The rail industry, which is a particular favourite of mine, due to family links going back a generation or two, since privatisation has recieved billions of pounds of tax payers money. Indeed, far more money that it ever recieved whilst in public hands. This is obviously to the benefit of a few people, as opposed to the people of the country.
Indeed, it has been stated that the lack of investment, whilst in private hands, led to failures that has caused crashes killing people.
One fear of the hackney trade is that dregulation will lead to similar occurances within the hackney industry, although it is generally accepted that vehicles will still be tested by local authorities.
When people advise that these businesses never made a profit whilst being state owned, they seem to forget that they were never designed to make a profit, they were designed to offer the public a service.
Of course, the question should be asked as to whether there is a certain degree of corruption here, is it a complete mystery that the former goals of the British Labour Party seem to have been dropped in favour of the free market? The political scene now has three political parties with virtually no differences, save for the Lib Dems anti war stance.
Only the fringe parties such as the Socialists and the Greens have came out and stated their position concerning deregulation.
Indeed the greens recently stated this:
"The uncoordinated privatisation and deregulation of many parts of the UK transport industry has contributed to a lack of coherent transport policy for freight and passenger movements. The Green Party believes that public regulation allowing democratic accountability of transport providers is generally the best management system."
The greens do tend to have a point, it is sad their intelligent view of how public transport should be managed will not see the light of day under any government.
I would additionally state, for the record, one aspect of deregulation that Mr Button seems to have forgot, its only a small point, but relevent to the argument of deregulation.
A private hire car and company are precisely that, a private hire, it is the individuals choice to pre book and hire that vehicle.
A hackney carriage is a taxi service, it is obliged by license to perform a service at a fare decided upon by the local authority.
_________________ Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. George Carlin
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